


any way the wind blows

by eleven_twelve



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Minor Character Death, but things happen, donghyuck lives in korea and mark in canada but it comes together, everything is illuminated au, its not a sad fic, mark is just whipped bruh thats it, references to the war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 18:35:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14795780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleven_twelve/pseuds/eleven_twelve
Summary: Mark had always known there was something waiting for him back home.





	any way the wind blows

**Author's Note:**

> loosely based on everything is illuminated but not as tragic.

 

His grandmother dies in the summer.  

Mark sits with his back against the eggshell walls of her bedroom and watches shadows shift across the wooden floorboards as the sun dies along with her. A light breeze makes the translucent curtains in front of the open window billow slightly. The wind carries the scent of freshly cut grass and oncoming rain. Familiar, calm. Mark thinks that maybe it shouldn't feel so banal. 

Right before she goes, she beckons Mark to come close. The arduous curl of an index finger, the tug of a smile at the corners of her cracked lips. He's only ever known kneading and sweet words. Mark kneels on the floor and holds her cold hand. She squeezes softly, gently, like maybe only a person near death could.  

"Grandpa," she whispers, and then a cough that rattles her bones. She points at a picture that lies folded on the nightstand, underneath an amber amulet. Mark picks it up, unfolds it, only to find a younger, more alive version of his grandfather smiling at him. A carbon copy of himself, it seems, if not for the traditional clothes he's wearing, and the girl hanging from his arm like it's where she belongs. 

His grandmother fumbles with her necklace, stiff fingers popping under the strain of years of hard work and arthritis, the silver pendant glinting in the late afternoon light. Mark bows his head for her to slide it around his neck, as if sealing a silent promise.  

"He wanted you to have this," Mark closes his eyes as his grandmother gently cups his cheeks. Her hands still smell like the same hand cream she's always used, way back when everything was in place, like soft and old. She drags her thumb over the arch of Mark's brow, the pearls of sweat that well up out of the sunburnt skin to replace the tears that don't come. "My Minhyung, she breathes out. Mark pretends that it doesn’t sting. 

He sits there for a long time. When the lawn mower stops, only the buzzing summer heat drowns out the rushing of his blood against his eardrums. He stares up at the high ceiling. The sun reflects bright orange against the amber in his hands. The bee inside the resin must have died millions of years ago. Mark wonders if the world had been just as silent back then. 

- 

A mere two weeks and three days after his grandmother's passing Mark finds himself on a plane to Korea. His mother smoothens his shirt in the departure hall of Vancouver airport, in the middle of a six hour car ride from and to their home in the foothills of the Rockies.  

"Be safe," she says and tucks a stray lock of black hair behind Mark's ear. He notes how her hooded eyes glaze over in the fluorescent lights, the way she lets her hands linger. On the plane he will write down what his mother looks like dressed in sadness and worry for the first time. Mark has never been away from home. 

He did very careful research. He heard about the heritage tours from a friend of a friend, a girl that went to the same high school as his brother John. "That's crazy, Mark," John would say when Mark brought up his plan of finding the village where their grandfather had fled from after the war. Mark didn't respond, only wrote down that John's voice reminded him of their father's when he got frustrated. 

It's what Mark has always wanted. After his grandfather died of lung cancer, after long years of working in the coal mines, the skin of his fingers permanently stained grey between the calluses, Mark wanted to know about where he came from.  

He has pages upon pages written about the colour of the mountain lakes, the smell of fresh snow and the feel of newly pressed hay bales. Canada is his home. But something about the unknown of his ancestry intrigues him endlessly. He wonders if raking his hands through the soil his forefathers are rooted in will bring him home too. 

- 

Mark mistakenly expects it all to run smoothly. 

He walks into the arrival area of the international flights, blue suitcase heavy on his right arm, almost pulling his bones apart at the elbow. There is a bunch of people that are met with bright smiles and bouquets of yellow tulips and pink roses. Mark stands by himself and waits. 

Two more flights arrive, one from Toronto and one from New York. Mark sits by the window and stares at the sun that washes in bright gold waves over the runways. An hour and one roll of tuna kimbap ("No carrots please.") later, a boy lazily strolls into the hallway. He stares at himself in the reflecting floor and is careful to jump over the lines between tiles. Mark squints at him and the paper he holds in his hand.  _Makeu_ _M. Lee_ it reads in bright red ink. 

The boy stops right in front of him. He holds the paper up to Mark's face, loudly smacking on a piece of pink bubblegum as he tilts his head in question. "It's Mark," Mark corrects, straightening out the crinkles in his navy blue suit.  

The boy raises his eyebrows into the ends of his sun-bleached fringe. The purple bruise around his right eye keeps it from widening. "That is what it says, does it not?" He responds in a tone so matter-of-factly that Mark can't help but agree. He drags a tan finger along the wonky letters as he reads out loud, "Makeu Em Lee." Then points it at Mark's chest, "That is you, right?" 

Mark nods slowly. He watches as the boy pulls the gum from his mouth and sticks it to the back of a row of eggnog coloured plastic chairs. His face is pulled into a smirk, equal parts endearing and mischievous.  

"I am Donghyuck," he introduces himself. He sticks out a hand and waits for Mark to take it. "I will be your guide and translator for the coming couple of weeks."  

He flashes Mark a smile so bright it looks like it's straight out of one of those expensive, dentists' recommendation toothpaste commercials. Mark thinks it's nice enough to take up an entire page in his notebook. 

Donghyuck carries Mark's suitcase on the way to the car. "You arrived just in time," he explains, gesturing at the bright blue skies overhead, "The raining ceased yesterday." On the edge of the horizon the sun drowns in an ocean of orange. A promise for nice weather, his grandmother would have said. 

In the car sits an old man asleep behind the steering wheel. Donghyuck shakes his shoulder gently and mumbles something in Korean. The man responds with a loud yell and a long string of what Mark assumes to be cuss words. "I apologise for his behaviour," Donghyuck says, lifting Mark's suitcase into the trunk, "My grandfather believes he has a hearing impediment."  

Mark is seated in the back of the car, next to a big white dog that licks his fingers in wonder. "Do not be fearful of Michael Jackson Junior." Donghyuck turns his head to look at Mark, gold in the fading sunlight, "She is only curious." Mark laughs and says he doesn't mind. Donghyuck nods and brings his fingers up to where the purple bruise has spread to the apple of his cheek.  

"What happened to your eye?" He asks, carful to not offend the boy. Donghyuck shrugs and lowers his voice so that his grandfather doesn't hear despite his self-diagnosed deafness, although Mark is pretty sure he can't understand English. His wavy fringe falls over his eyes. In the yellow evening light it is almost the colour of the grain fields back home. "My father has loose hands." 

- 

Lee Donghyuck is the oldest of five siblings. He shares a room with three of them, in between the kitchen and Na Jaemin's room across the narrow alleyway that separates the two apartment complexes. At night he hangs over the railing of the balcony to reach for the pink bubblegum Jaemin steals from the convenience store around the corner, the sounds of the city embedded under the brown of his skin, the fleeting touch of Jaemin's fingers transcribed to bloom bright red across his cheeks. 

They eat all together every night, six pairs of long legs carefully folded underneath the small dining table in the middle of the cramped living room. Michael Jackson Junior guards her spot on the couch, brown leather torn where she bites every time Donghyuck's father raises his voice too much for the walls of the apartment to contain.  

"There's a Canadian coming," his father announces, grains of rice falling from his mouth, "He's looking for a village on the northern shore of Ganghwa." Donghyuck finishes his bowl of rice and stands up to get a refill. "You're in charge of translating, Donghyuck." It's more a command than it's anything else.  

"What about the farm?" Donghyuck questions as he sets his bowl by the sink. His youngest sister approaches him on wobbly feet and pink socks. He picks her up and ignores the growling of his stomach. "You can do both," his father mutters, turning his attention once again to the cooked pork on his plate. 

Donghyuck and his oldest sister spend the summers on their grandparents' farm on Ganghwa Island. The end of the season marks the beginning of the rice harvest, when the plants reach all the way up to Donghyuck's waist, bright green as far as the eye can see. His grandparents farm in the old-fashioned way, so he and his sister spend countless hours up to their knees in the mud under the glittering rays of the burning sun. When autumn comes they go back to their shoebox in the city and pick dirt from underneath their nails for weeks to come. 

Later that night, when the city almost falls silent, Donghyuck tells Jaemin about the new client, summer air pressing heavily onto his tired shoulders.  

"He's American?" Jaemin gasps, admiration and wonder leaking out of his voice into the gum he's chewing. Donghyuck leans his head in his hands on the balcony railing and shrugs. "Canadian," he corrects, staring at the people passing by underneath, wondering if they'd notice if he spat on their heads.  

Jaemin turns on his light on the other side of the alley. One side of his face glows orange, the other neon blue. Donghyuck can see the stars in his eyes. "I wonder if he's cool, like the heroes in those American movies." Jaemin watches those in the cinema with Lee Jeno from the other class. When Donghyuck hasn't got enough money, he tells him more about Jeno's smile than the movie they saw. 

"Say, Donghyuck," Jaemin turns his attention to him, breathing out a wisp of cigarette smoke that curls into the night sky like a flock of migrating swallows. His eyes glint in a way that makes Donghyuck's stomach churn in anticipation. Jaemin owns the streets like he's bought them from the old lady down the street, asking for discounts with a dazzling smile and a promise to do well in school. Donghyuck can see the embers of another plan flickering behind his irises. It's bound to go wrong somewhere. 

"What?" He replies, feigning ignorance to keep himself from thinking about the consequences most of Jaemin's midnight plans end up having. Jaemin flicks his cigarette over the railing of his balcony, leaning into Donghyuck as if to bridge the two metres of freefall between them. "Would you mind introducing me to this guy?" His lips pull up dangerously at the corners, "I've always wondered what it would be like to kiss an American." 

- 

They arrive in the city when it's dark. Mark presses his cheek against the cool glass of the half-rolled down window, the vibrations of the engine knocking like tiny fists against the inside of his skull. The high-rises are so tall that their heads are hidden in clouds that reflect neon blue and suffocating heat onto those that live on the streets below. 

In the front seat Donghyuck is quietly humming along to a song on the radio, voice almost entirely drowned out by the continuous rumble of the outdated engine. Mark leans his head back against the seat and stares at the city passing by in flashes of bright lights and aromatic street foods. 

"We have arrived," Donghyuck announces as he steps out of the passenger seat. He stretches his arms high above his head, reaching out to the obscurity above them. Mark makes a promise to write about the way he walks like he's preying, endless legs and careful steps.  

Upstairs, Mark puts his suitcase down onto a bed by the window. Donghyuck has ushered his siblings out of the room after dragging all their mattresses into the living area. One of them cheers loudly as she rolls around on the huge makeshift bed. Donghyuck laughs softly and closes the door behind him.  

"My excuses for them, we are leaving tomorrow," he says apologetically, pushing his fringe out of his eyes. 

Mark sits down and takes off his suit jacket, "It's fine don't worry about it, I have a brother too. I know how it is." Donghyuck seems interested. He turns his head away from the window he was staring out of, pulling the yellow curtains back into place. "Will you tell me about him later or is that unprofessional?" 

Although they have only just met, Mark feels like Donghyuck is familiar. He talks teasingly, with a childlike lilt to his voice, like a nursery rhyme or folk music. It's easy, it's welcome. Mark laughs and loosens his tie. "I'm sleeping in your room, there's nothing professional about that." 

A loud tap against the window makes Donghyuck flinch. He opens it and yells something in Korean to a boy sitting on the windowsill of the opposite apartment, one foot inside his room, the other dangling into the night.  

He turns to Mark, "That is Jaemin, my friend from school. He is thrilled to meet you." There is a glimmer of hesitation in his eyes. Mark stands up and tucks the back of his white shirt into his pants. Donghyuck glares. 

The boy has a charming smile. He falls over his words as he introduces himself in broken English, accent thick like syrup and heat. Mark bows politely and reaches out over the railing to shake Jaemin's clammy hand. Donghyuck leans his head in his hands and stares at them like they're from another universe.  

Donghyuck and Jaemin exchange some sentences and Mark stares at the hole in his left sock, white gone grey because of the dust on the balcony floor. "We have to get up early tomorrow," Donghyuck announces, "Let us get to bed." The wind pulls at the strands of his hair like it's trying to take him away.  

Mark waves at Jaemin who smirks at something Donghyuck mutters under his breath. Mark does not understand Korean very well, but he tastes the bitterness of the words like black coffee on his tongue. 

"What was that about?" Mark asks quietly, when they're both laying on mats on the floor. The heat is too heavy to bear. Donghyuck's breathing is steady but Mark knows he's not asleep because of the way he sighs at the question like a house settling in its frame. "Jaemin is just-" Donghyuck's voice sounds a lot closer than Mark expects it to. It feels warm in a different way than the stifling humidity. "He just wants to use you." 

Mark opens his mouth to ask what he means but Donghyuck rolls away from him. "Get some sleep, Mark Lee," he whispers. A cool breeze floats in through the open window, carrying the sound of a train passing by in the distance. "Good night, Donghyuck," Mark says. Donghyuck doesn't answer. 

- 

It's a silent morning. Donghyuck wakes Mark with a cup of coffee and pushes him out the door with one sock still in his hand.  

His grandfather sits on the bench outside the apartment complex, yelling at the fruit vendor on the other side of the street about the unfair price of her juicy pink peaches and the fact that her oldest son's moped keeps him up at night. Donghyuck refrains from mentioning his hearing issues and settles for an apologetic bow.  

"Grandpa we have to go," he says, voice rough like the sand of sleep. Mark waits awkwardly by the car, dragging his long fingers over the layer of summer dust that has gathered on the chipped red paint of the roof. In his other hand he holds his notebook, brown leather cracked along the spine, the remnants of usage and familiarity.  

Donghyuck brings it up halfway the city and the unknown. "Hey Mark," he asks tentatively, walking a fine line between curious and intrusive, "What did you think of Jaemin?"  

Mark looks up from his notebook, mechanical pencil dangling between his thumb and index-finger, eyes widening at the question. "I don't really have a lot to think of," he answers, with a slight shrug of his broad shoulders, "I only talked to him once." He presses his lips into a tight line and goes back to writing. 

Donghyuck is a jealous person. He is warm from the sun and his passion for music but burns red at the cheeks and fingertips with irrational envy. It doesn’t take much to ignite him, and Jaemin knows how to spark a flame.  

"Right," he responds. He turns his head to the hills. There is no radio signal so all Donghyuck hears is the scribbling of Mark's pencil and the stubborn sputtering of the engine. 

"What are you writing about?" He asks later, somewhere on a crossroad of rice fields and dusty dirt roads. Mark smiles and lets his head hang low, like the orchid on Donghyuck's windowsill that never gets enough water but thrives in the bright sunlight. Red blotches appear on his neck underneath the collar of his white dress shirt. 

"I write about everything," he answers, scrunching up his nose, wide eyes narrowing into crescent moons until they almost disappear. "I feel like if I don't write down everything that happens to me or that I find pretty," Mark starts, gesturing with his hands to the torn fabric on the backseat of the car, Donghyuck's grandfather's neon green shirt, the sun rolling down the hills, bright like a child, "I will forget."  

There's a drawn-out silence. Mark stares at Donghyuck in contemplation, fiddling with a button on the bottom of his shirt. "I'm very scared to forget."  

Donghyuck tilts his head in confusion, "What does that mean?"  

Mark breathes out a laugh, eyes shining in the late morning light. "Anxious?" He proposes. Donghyuck shakes his head. "Fearful?" Donghyuck smiles. Mark leans his head against the window and smiles back at him. Donghyuck supposes if he did what Mark does, he'd have pages worth of that smile. 

"Do you write about me?" Donghyuck questions. Mark flushes red under the sunburns on his cheekbones. A smirk pulls at his lips. "I wrote about how you are a bit annoying."  

Donghyuck feigns a frown. "Do not go around spouting such nonsense," he argues. Mark's face falls for a split second before he realizes Donghyuck is joking. "I am incredibly annoying."  

- 

It's late afternoon when they run out of gas. Donghyuck's grandfather sits slouched in the driver's seat and stares at the old photograph of Mark's grandfather. Donghyuck has a gentle hand on his shoulder, whispering something Mark can't hear. 

They had tried to find Jiseok, the last known name of village Mark is looking for, scribbled almost illegibly onto the yellowed backside of the picture. It's on the north side of Ganghwa island, where the river is used as a division of the land Mark's family used to live on, where the hills roll into the river and then into where they can't reach.  

"We should go find a gas station." Donghyuck turns to Mark with a concerned frown. The sun falls in his face and accentuates the worry lines that crinkle along his eyes like a river on its way to the sea. Mark takes off his tie and suit jacket and leaves them on the back seat. Michael Jackson Junior barks loudly when he closes the door. The rest of the world is silent. 

Mark follows Donghyuck's footprints in the dust, their socks and the bottom of their pants turned beige when they finally find a tarmac road. "I think I know where we are," Donghyuck says with a giddy wave of his arms and walks across the street to see around the bend. Mark looks at him from the other side. He almost resembles a dream, a bright orange blur through the mirages vibrating above the black asphalt. 

Around the bend stands a little white chapel. Virgin Mary, bleached periwinkle in her little hollow, watches them from above the door. The air smells like black pines and salt, the chapel like incense and faith. Donghyuck steps inside. 

Mark feels how his leather shoes leave blisters on the backs of his heels. He sits down in the long grass and pulls them off. A fly rests on the protruding bone of his left ankle, rubbing its tiny legs together as if praying. Mark picks a daisy and sticks it behind his ear. The fly takes off. He probably looks like an idiot. 

"Donghyuck, is it still far?" Mark asks, raising his voice over the sound of the rustling leaves and buzzing heat. Donghyuck gives no answer. Mark gets up and steps into the chapel. Donghyuck sits on his knees with his face against his balled fists, his mumbling resonates against the stone walls. It is cool inside the chapel so Mark sits down on the bench and watches Donghyuck pray. 

"It is not very far anymore," Donghyuck responds when he gets up on his feet and rubs his hands over his face. The skin of his knees is red and dented. He turns to Mark and smiles. Through the stained-glass window the sun smiles along with him, bright blue and lilac onto Donghyuck's tan cheeks, bruise on his face turning the colour of Mark's grandmother's hydrangeas.  

Mark gets up and steps barefooted into the patch of colour. "Let's go then," he says, and although he notices the tear tracks on Donghyuck's face before anything else, he doesn't mention them, "so we can get back before sundown."  

Donghyuck brings two fingers up to his forehead and salutes him, "Yes sir." Mark laughs and pushes him out the door. 

On the way back from the gas station, jerry can of gasoline in between them, more a link than an obstacle, they pass the chapel again. Virgin Mary has turned orange in the light of the setting sun.  

"I was praying to my mother just now," Donghyuck pipes up, looking Mark in the eyes, "She perished last summer."  

Mark is taken aback. He lifts his thumb and strokes it across Donghyuck's pinky finger of the hand holding the handle of the jerry can. "I'm sorry to hear that, Donghyuck," he replies. The heavy pressure of his grandmother's passing still hangs like thick smoke in his ribcage.  

Donghyuck nods. "I just thought you should know why I was crying," he explains, "It affected me greatly." 

They don't talk for the rest of the walk back to the car. Mark listens to the song of a blackbird down the rice fields, the loud rumble of a tractor's engine and the chirping of cicadas on the roadside. He counts the wooden poles along the sides of the fields. Donghyuck still has his pinky curled around Mark's thumb. Mark reaches twenty-three when they arrive at the car.  

Donghyuck turns to him once his grandfather starts filling up the tank. "Thank you for helping me carry the gasoline," he says. Mark shakes his head, the daisy falling wilted from behind his ear, "I'm glad to help." Donghyuck grins. Under the fading light of the burning sun, he almost seems golden. 

- 

It's raining. The boy stands in front of Donghyuck like they've known each other for lifetimes, shoulders hunched and arms crossed. He is covered in mud from head to toe, light blue raincoat tied loosely around his shoulders as if this isn't a second coming of the flood.  

"I heard you were looking for Jiseok," he tells Donghyuck. His hands are big, coming up to his cheeks to wipe at the raindrops hanging off his lashes like dew on a spider's web. The rain is warm and relentless. It makes everything smell earthy and reborn. "Yes," Donghyuck responds, "I am." 

Mark sits in the hayloft. When Donghyuck climbs up the ladder, the roof is leaking above his head. "Mayor Park's son told me about the village," he announces, dropping into their nest of hay like a homebound swallow. Mark looks up from his notebook with wide eyes. The rain drums on the roof in anticipation. 

It's been a very rigid search. Donghyuck smiles when Mark sighs in relief. The Jesus on Mark's old youth group shirt smiles back at him with the right eye missing. He tells them  _don't_ _sto_ _believ_ _._ The yellow fabric is threadbare where Mark makes a habit out of fiddling with the hem when he's nervous. 

"When are we leaving?" He asks with a giddy tone to his voice, tugging at Donghyuck's heartstrings with every upturn of his thin lips. "Tomorrow," Donghyuck responds, rolling onto his back until he's pressed up against Mark. The world blooming around them. Donghyuck doesn't want to go back to the city. The hay and Mark's ocean-wide shoulders make for a better home. 

- 

Donghyuck's grandmother wakes him up when the night is dark, hair wet from the rain. Mark has an arm carefully curled around Donghyuck's waist, cheeks warm against his neck. A familiar feeling tingles in the tips of his fingers. 

"We can't go to the village tomorrow," his grandmother whispers. Mark stirs in his sleep. "We have to drain the rice fields, it's been raining too hard."  

Donghyuck doesn't like disappointing people. He tries his best to please and please and please. Mark is understanding but he has been waiting for so long. Donghyuck doesn't want to take anything away from him. 

"Alright," he answers, sleep thick in his throat, guilt burning alongside it. "I understand."  

- 

Mark sits on the black asphalt of the road. The sun burns hot on the back of his head, stretching his shadow along the field. He watches Donghyuck push the drainage tool through the water-filled ditches between the rice plants, cheeks bright red from sunburn and exertion. 

"Do I have to help you with anything?" He asks Donghyuck when the boy comes to sit down next to him, poking the molten tar along the road's edge. There's a smear of mud on his cheek. Mark brings a hand up to wipe it away.  

"No, it is okay." Donghyuck smiles when Mark' fingers graze his jaw, illuminated gold in the early morning light. Blinding.  

Mark pulls a small packet of rice balls out of his bag and hand them to Donghyuck. "Did you make these?" He asks, devouring two of them in less than a minute, rice falling from his mouth when he laughs at Mark's impressed face. 

"Yes," he responds and looks down at his feet, "I made them just for you."  

Donghyuck's eyes turn into crescents of gold, like the mud under his nails. Mark presses his teeth together and clenches his jaw in a fruitless effort not to grin when Donghyuck curls his pinky around Mark's in a silent thank you.  

- 

"You knew him, didn't you?" Donghyuck asks his grandfather in a small voice, staring out over the river that extends like a plain of silver before them, curling around hillsides and through fields until it swallows the entire world in its mouth where it reunites with the sea. An embrace that smells like salt and driftwood. 

Donghyuck's grandfather turns to him, slowly, like the time creeping stealthily through the village's unpaved streets. Donghyuck figures he's right. He can tell from the slight dejection that pulls at his grandfather's spinal cord, forcing him into a slouch, shoulders slumped in melancholy. 

"He used to live around here," he begins. A blackbird accompanies his words with a cheerful melody, sitting on an overhead cable like the cord dancers in the circus videos John likes to watch. It seems almost unfitting.  

"He worked on our farm for a while after the war. He was a communist and was fearing for his life. We pretended he was my cousin from the South. Although his accent was thick and strong they never asked. I think the soldiers were soft at heart. They were missing their humanity too."  

There's a silence that floats around them on the waves of heat. The blackbird stopped singing as if it could tell the situation was too grave for her song. Only happy ears could hear and appreciate such beauty. 

"Lee Minhyung," his grandfather sighs, "It's been a long long time."  

Mark perks up at the name he also bears. It sometimes feels like he is meant to replace his own grandfather. "Were you talking about my grandpa?" He asks, running his pencil in circles along the palm of his left hand. His eyes are wide as the world. Donghyuck wants to look at him forever. 

"We were," he admits. The embankment feels hot underneath his trembling fingers. "He lived with my family before he left. They kept him safe."  

Mark nods. He opens his notebook and unfolds the photograph that he keeps sheltered there until he finds a worthy home for it. He hands it to Donghyuck's grandfather. "For you," he mutters in his broken Korean, accent thick like the summer air. "Thank you."  

Donghyuck's grandfather wipes at a stray tear as he bows his head. "You are a lot like him," he says. Mark doesn't understand. 

- 

Mark trails behind Donghyuck like a stray. The path they walk on is still damp from the heavy rainfall, treacherous, with roots that like to hook around his feet just below the surface. Mark slips twice. Donghyuck decides to hold his hand. "As a safety precaution," he insists, but the gleam in his eyes tells Mark otherwise. 

Before they descend to the river inlet Donghyuck's grandfather told them about, with his hands buried in Michael Jackson Junior's white fur like it was his lover's, they spot a soldier by the embankment.  

He strides over to them with his head held high, proud posture and polished leather boots. If Mark wasn't so scared of being told to turn back, he would take it all in to write about.  

The soldier tells them something Mark doesn't understand. The tone of his voice is severe and threatening. Mark lets his head hang low before he hears a snort. Donghyuck squeezes his hand and laughs at him. "Do not be fearful," he says, "This is only Doyoung Kim." 

The soldier, as it turns out, is Donghyuck's grandparents' neighbour, regular for Saturday dinners, makes great cabbage kimchi. Donghyuck introduces Mark to the soldier, who smiles brightly and ruffles Mark's hair. He does not speak a word of English, but his gentle voice transcends languages.  

"My sister used to be enamoured with him," Donghyuck admits, when Doyoung lets them pass without a problem and waves at them until they are swallowed by the shrubbery. Mark grins at the fondness in his eyes, "Are you sure it was just her?" He replies, the jealousy is subtle but it doesn't blind. Donghyuck laughs in response and pushes Mark further ahead. "Be quiet!" 

The tide inlet is surrounded by overgrown trees and bushes. Weeping willows and knotty oaks, reed that houses croaking frogs and crickets. There's a small patch of dirt where the river creeps up the land, clawing fingers up the ground to steal it for itself. 

Mark takes off his necklace and turns to Donghyuck. "I've always wondered what this says," he smiles, looking down at the words engraved in the gold, "It just never seemed like the right moment to ask."  

Donghyuck takes the necklace in his tan fingers, holds it as if it is the most valuable diamond, the most fragile porcelain. "Bury me alongside my heart," Donghyuck translates slowly. He looks up at Mark with his mouth slightly agape. There are remnants of sun cream in his eyebrow and remnants of sunshine in his eyes.  

Mark tears out the pages that describe Donghyuck's grandfather, the way he drives like he's slightly intoxicated, the crinkles of his eyes like waves of the sea, the change in his voice when he talks about the past. They are buried in the dirt with the necklace. It brings the sort of peace that settles like fulfilment in his bones.  

Donghyuck sings a song, voice like liquid sunlight that falls in patches through the canopy of leaves overhead. He presses a fleeting kiss to Mark's lips. Everything seems to finally fall into place. 

- 

The sun isn't bright or gold that evening. It is orange and flat, as if printed out onto paper and taped to the blue expanse of sky like an art project gone amiss. Mark looks at it in wonder. It does not blind, but leaves blue and purple bruises on his retina nonetheless. 

They sit in the train on the way back to the city. The carriage is empty. Donghyuck is asleep with his head on Mark's shoulder, his hair tickling Mark's neck like the hay in the barn. Mark already misses it. One of the lights along the aisle is broken. It flickers twenty-one times before Mark realises he's crying. 

He finds it strange how things have gone. How he came looking for a home he'd only ever heard about and found one in a place he never expected. Donghyuck exhales warmly onto the side of Mark's face. Sun-kissed. 

He doesn't write about it in his notebook. It seems so futile. How could he describe what it feels like to hold Donghyuck's hands, to feel his skin and to hear his voice. Mark lives through moments the way he wants them to be. He makes them sound so pretty but they are never real. Donghyuck sits beside him smiles against his neck. It's real. 

- 

 _Seoul, December 11_ _h_ _199_ _7_  

 _Dear Mark Lee,_  

 _It_ _has_   _been a while. I think of you sometimes when I listen to Michael Jackson, even though I do_ _not_ _know why. Maybe I should have written_ _sooner, or_ _called at least. I finally got a mobile phone. It is a lot more useful than the central line in_ _our apartment complex. I always run out of coins._  

 _Grandfather asks about you. He forgot to ask if you eat raw fish in Canada too. I told him most_ _likely yes, but he would_ _no_ _t believe it if it came from me. This is a reason for you to write back._ _I will put the_ _address_ _on the back of this letter_ _because w_ _e moved a year after you left._  

 _N_ _ow I will come to the point of why I am writing you this letter in the first place. It concerns your own grandfather. I_ _very clearly_ _remember you telling me about him, about his stacks of diaries and his big, big eyes. Maybe he reminds me a bit of you, but I have of course never had the_ _honour_ _of meeting him, so I_ _can_ _not_ _say so for sure_ _._  

 _I_ _found a letter of his in the hayloft. The envelope says, "To whom it may concern", I assume that does not_ _mean me_ _,_ _so I did not open it. I am willing to send it to you, if you want me to._  

 _T_ _his letter is short because I do not know if you want to communicate with me. If you wish to do so I will be happy, because I must admit I do miss you a lot. The first winter after you left felt very empty. I long to hold your hands, and I hope you do so too._  

 _I will be anticipating your answer. Write back soon._  

 _Yours truly,_  

 _Lee_ _Donghyuck_  

**Author's Note:**

> hello I'm back even tho nobody asked, and markhyuck still owns my heart. i dont know if this fic is unclear or vague or whatever bc ive been working on it for a long ass time so its probably patchy as hell. if u have a question, dont hesitate to ask bc this doesnt make as much sense as i think it should but okay. anyways markhyuck is superior but we been knew (i honestly dont even know what nana is doing in this fic bear with me im a mess...)
> 
> thank you so much for reading and if u liked it leave a kudo or comment i really appreciate it ilu <3


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